Ashes Of My Past
by DevineWhisper16
Summary: Matt, a young man, out on a vacation with his friend, ends up travling to the Halo universe, and after an accident, finds his way into the universe of Mass Effect! this story is inspired by Mockingbird79's story "Massive Shock". the first several chapters will be in the 'real' world or the Halo universe, but after that the story will be based in Mass Effect. my first story be kind!
1. Chapter 1: the vacation

**A N**: hello there! This is my first time uploading a story to fanfiction. Before we get to it, I would like to share some info about the upcoming story you are about to read. This story has been in my head for a while now, and I recently worked up the guts to officially start it.

The idea of this story was inspired by Mockingbird79's story "Massive Shock", this is one of the best self insert stories that I have read on fanfiction. It is about the main character getting sent to Rapture in the Boishock 2 game, he gets stuck there for several years. While he is there has to learn many skills to survive, which include getting Bioshock's famous "plasmids" which give him meta-human abilities. Eventually he dies, and ends up on the citadel in the Mass Effect universe, where he becomes a mercenary. What I just told you does not give that story any justice at all. I highly suggest reading it!

My story is about my character getting stuck in the halo universe, where he gains _certain_ _skills_. Eventually he will get thrown into the mass effect universe. Now, this story will not be a cross over, although I will make many references to halo (and to my characters past) throughout the story. The first several chapters will be set in either in the "real world", or in the halo universe. After that though, I plan on keeping the story line in Mass Effect. Oh before I forget, I will be taking suggestions, so any good ideas you would like to see? Because this is my first story, I would love it (so very much!) if you would leave a review. Corrective criticism would be appreciated. Now, let's get too it!

It's the same dream. It is the exact same dream I have been having it every night since I have left for this trip. It starts out the same each time, with me falling; at least I think I'm falling, through darkness. I am falling head first and can't move or scream. I am helpless. I can hear voices that are whispering from every direction! I can't tell what any of them are saying. There is no telling how fast or how far I am falling. The only thing that is different from any other night is a small point of light that is getting bigger the closer I get. The closer I get to the light the louder the voices get! And the light gets closer, and closer! And the whispering voices are now screaming! Before I reach the light, something comes out of the darkness and catches hold of me, stopping my decent instantly. The only thing I notice before I wake up is a cold hard grip crushing me. And then-!

"Wakey wakey, Matt! We got to get moving, or we aren't going to make it to the truck in time! Don't make me get the air horn again!"

My eyes pop open. I see sun light coming through the four person tent that that my friend Jacob and I have been sleeping in the last week.

"Ugh. I will get you back for that, you know." I mumble.

"Yes, yes you I'm sure you will. Now get up! We are already late as it is….. And you still need to finish packing." Replies Jacob.

I forgot to pack most of my stuff the night before, so I was supposed to wake up earlier so I could pack. But I didn't set my alarm! Oh well, I'll just have to rush.

"Fine, I'll get right to it. When do we have to get going?"

After a quick look at his watch he replies "To get back to the truck on time we should leave around eight o'clock."

"Sounds like a plan."

I unzip my sleeping bag halfway and sit upright I look to my right and see Jacob, who just finished rolling up his sleeping bag, packing it away the last of his gear. I take note that he already packed up most of his belongings and put them into his hiking backpack. I see that Jacob is already dressed; wearing brown cargo shorts, and a sky blue T-shirt, he is ready to go. Jacob is a seventeen year old who has brown hair, brown eyes, fair skin, and size 13 hiking boots. He grabs his pack, unzips the tent door and crawls out.

_Ok, he's out. Now let's get dressed._ Thankfully I already laid out my clothes, so I start taking of my shorts and Tee that I wore to bed, then I pull on a pair of black shorts, and put on a red T-shirt. I take a quick look at a small mirror we brought, and fix my hair. My friends would describe me as having a cheerful expression most of the time. They would also say I have blue-green eyes, brown hair that's starting to curl at the back of my neck, white skin, broad shoulders and chest from years of being on a swim team, and that I stand at five feet eleven inches. I guess I could be considered handsome if I do say so myself.

"Hey, Jacob, what's on the menu this morning?" I ask.

After donning today's clothes I precede throw all my loose belongings into my pack, then I start to roll up my sleeping bag and mat.

"Well, because this is our last day out here, I thought that we could just have the last of the oatmeal that we brought." He says.

"That sounds good to me."

I finish packing my bag and I exit the tent. After zipping it shut I turn around to take in the beauty of the morning. Looking ahead I take notice of how the sun is rising behind the trees. I see mist on the water, and how it is so still it reflects the grey sky. It's beautiful! I am sad that this is the last day of our trip; we had such a great time out in the wilderness. For the last two weeks Jacob and I have been canoeing across the northern Boundary Waters, carrying our canoe across portages, hiking in the woods, and fishing. It was awesome! I quickly recall the raccoon that got into our trash pack. Who knew that those little guys can be so messy! But we scared him off when we got back to the camp. After cleaning up the mess, we promised ourselves to keep the food and trash packs up in the trees whenever we leave the tents so it doesn't happen again..

I smile at the memories. Then I look around. Jacob is heating up a pot of water for our breakfast with his small _ultra-light_ camping stove. The food pack is still up in the trees so I make my way over to the rope that is holding it up; I untie it and lower it to the ground. I dig through what little food we have left and find the box of Quaker's oatmeal. I grab it and bring it over to Jacob, who is sitting on a log next to the tiny stove.

"Here ya go, Jacob." I say.

"thanks." He replies. "You know what? I hope to come back here again. This has been a really great experience, for both of us, you know?

"Yeah, I agree with you. Hey, remember when you said you didn't want to come?" I ask.

"Well, that was before you showed me pictures…." He says. "But I would regret not coming, so thanks for inviting me."

"You're welcome. But you don't need to thank me, you know. We have been friends since the fifth grade. And it would of have been quite boring if I was up here by myself you know." I say.

We both let out little chuckles. Instead of waiting around for the water to heat up, we start taking down the campsite. We take down the tent; pack it and the rest of our gear into the canoe and I tie it down with some rope. While I am making sure everything is packed and knotted down, Jacob goes to check on the water, and calls me over when he sees that it is hot enough. I grab our bowls and forks and walk over. We eat our fill of cinnamon and brown-sugar oatmeal, clean our dishes, and pack up the rest of the supplies. All the while we make idle conversations on what we liked about the vacation.

Soon we are in our life-jackets or PFD's and are in the canoe pushing away from the shore. I am in the front of the canoe and Jacob is in the back, steering. All of our gear is in the middle between us. We quickly get into a rhythm and we get moving at a steady pace. Jacob took a look at the map and said that we have about ten miles of water to get across until we will start seeing signs of civilization. And to civilization we go!

**Four hours later**

"Jacob, I got a question for you now," I say. "Who would win in a battle between Halo, and Mass Effect? The Halo factions will have the UNSC at Halo 4 status, the Covenant with all races at the height of their power, the Flood, and some forerunner tech such as Onyx sententials and Prometheans. Mass Effect will have all of the races for the Citadel such as the asari, turians, and salarians. There will also be the batarians, the krogan, quarians, some drells, hanar, geth, volus, vorcha, the human alliance, and any terminus system merc groups and any other Mass Effect races I might of have forgotten. Oh yeah, they also have the reapers. Who do you think will win?" (For all readers, who do you think will win?)

Jacob and I have been paddling this canoe across the water for several hours now. Our arms are starting to get sore, and we are both starting to get hungry. So far the weather has gotten quite humid, and the sky has a bunch of grey clouds and, surprisingly there is no wind. Right now we are eating some sandwiches in the middle of a lake. Jacob came up with this brilliant idea to start these Vs, Death Battle conversations. We have been taking turns with this; his first battle was between Daryl Dixon from the walking dead, and this Joel from this new game called 'the last of us'. I don't know too much about this Joel character, but Jacob seemed to think he was a badass. But in my opinion Daryl is cooler. Then he asked who I thought was the better Zombie killer. Again, I said Daryl but Joel does sound pretty cool. Jacob then told me it was my turn. I had to think about mine for… about two seconds. Who better to pit against one another than my two favorite video game series, Halo and Mass Effect!

"How did I know you would say that?" He lets out a small chuckle. "Well, is there any infighting?"

"No infighting." I confirm.

"Ok. Hmm, this is a tough one. Mass Effect does have a lot of people, maneuverable ships, kinetic barriers, and biotics. But they are too reliant on Element Zero, restricted to the mass relays, and their ships have a habit of overheating while in combat. Halo has huge ships, really high tech AI's, slipspace, and Direct Energy Weapons. Unlike Mass Effect, the Halo factions can adapt quite well to fighting a new threat. Without knowing all the numbers, I think halo has the stronger ships which can take out the reapers and any other Mass Effect ship, and space superiority would determine who would win in my opinion. So, my vote goes to halo." He says after a bit of thinking.

"I knew you would join the right side!" I exclaim. "Here is another quick question. You know how Forerunners and Prometheans use hard-light weapons, and the People in Mass Effect have Kinetic Barriers? I want your opinion on if Hard-light munitions could bypass Mass Effects Kinetic Barriers."

"I don't know, buddy. That is a good question." He says. "Try looking it up tomorrow, after we go home and sleep in our beds."

"Speaking of which, I think we should get a move on. The weather doesn't look to great." I say.

"Your'e right," He Frowns. "Let's get going. I don't think we want to get caught out here in the open water."

With that we take up our paddles and start making our way to base camp. Base camp is about three miles away up stream. I feel rested up enough, so I start doing huge powerful strokes with my oar. Jacob is still in the back is doing his best to keep the canoe on course. We turn a bend and we see our first glimpse of Base camp. We are half way across when we hear the sirens; they are severe weather warnings for anyone within the area. I'm confused. There is no wind and the only thing I feel is the humidity, granted there are grey clouds covering the sky as far as the eye can see, but they don't look like they have much rain in them. Then I hear it. The wind is howling through the trees and racing across the water. It is a huge gust of wind so powerful it is creating a huge wave, and it is coming fast! The clouds behind us are black, and covering the entire horizon, I notice pelting rain and flashes of lightning.

"SHIT!" I yell. "We need to get to shore, now!"

Come on, come on, come ON! We are in the middle of the freaking lake and the storm is right on our ass! I can hear it coming and I look back to Jacob I see that he took off his life-jacket. And he can barley swim! I open my mouth to tell him to put it back on, but then the wind caught up to us. Blowing right in my face, I couldn't breathe for a second and, it was deafening! The waves hit us right after that, flipping our canoe, and throwing us into the water. One of the knots I tied came undone just then and all of our gear and supplies went into the water. I am thrown clear of the canoe and pop up to the surface instantly because I am wearing my life-jacket. I shake the water out of my eyes and look for Jacob. I spot him right away; he is struggling to stay afloat several yards away from the capsized canoe. I yell his name and start swimming towards him. With the rain stinging my face and fighting against the wind I struggle to make my way to him. He sinks beneath the waves just as I get to him. I try to reach down and grab his arm, but I didnt in time because he sank like a rock. I quickly unbuckle my PFD, take a deep breath, and dive beneath the waves.

When I open my eyes I notice that the water is dirty so now, I can barely see a few feet ahead of me, I keep diving. Then I see Jacob; he is struggling to swim upwards, but he keeps going down. Conscious that I can't hold my breath much longer I grab hold of his arms and start kicking towards the surface. I can see the rain hit the water and the waves going up and down. I notice that the canoe is starting to sink beneath the waves; I see scattered bags sinking to the bottom of the lake. I finally breach the surface and pull Jacob up with me. I am now fighting to keep both of our heads above the water. I see a life-jacket floating close by, I start reaching for it, but it is too far away! I move behind Jacob and put my arm around his chest and start kicking like a mad man. I eventually grab the jacket and shove Jacob's arms through the holes and buckle it up. He is awake by now and, with the help of the PFD he can keep his head above water. I however am still fighting keep my head above the water, but I am running out of energy, with all the canoeing and swimming this weather, I am running on fumes. Then I get pulled under. A rope got tangled around my leg and whatever it is attached to is sinking fast. I reach down to untangle my foot, but there is a lot of rope. The thing that is dragging me down deeper is a bag that me and Jacob used to hold all of our cooking supplies.

_I am going to die because of fucking pots and pans? No, no, NO!_

By now my lungs are burning. I need to get out of this mess! I'm panicking now. I can't untie the knot that has formed around my leg, and I don't have a knife. I need to breathe! I am in some deep water here. The water is pitch black and I can barely see any light above me, all I see is flashes from the lightning. I open my mouth to scream. And everything fades to black.

END OF THE FIRST CHAPTER

**A N: **please review! I want to know if you like the story, what I did wrong, what I need to improve, etc.


	2. Chapter 2: Well, This is New

**A N:** Hi everyone! The first chapter got a bunch of positive response. This is way more than I expected! Thank you to everyone who reviewed. And if anybody has any questions, put them in a review or PM me, I'll answer them as best as I can.

I would also like to thank Carleen and Primordial Soul for their help with this story. Since I am sure you two will be reading this, "Hi! I hope you like this chapter! And thank you for all the support!" Ok, now that is done. Let's get on with Matt's adventure!

One more thing, last chapter I forgot to say that I don't own Halo, or Mass Effect, or that I don't plan on making any money off of this. Microsoft and 343 industries own Halo, while Bioware owns Mass Effect. I own only the characters I make up.

**Chapter 2: Halo**

I'm falling again, through the darkness, toward a light. Voices whisper to me from every angle. The funny thing is, I realize that I am not afraid. Normally, I am afraid of heights and falling. But this is different somehow, because I feel in control.

The last time I had this dream, I got closer to the point of light. As I fell the light seemed to gets brighter, and larger. The whispers gradually get louder too. By the time I am close the voices are screeching like demons from Hell. Just like last time, right before I touch the light something comes out of the blackness and grabs me, stopping my fall. Except this time I don't wake up when the thing starts to squeeze me and in this dream I can't cry out.

As my body is crushed, I get a look at what is doing the crushing. It is an arm. A giant human like arm made of some type of metal that is almost as black as the darkness around it. The thing seems to follow the muscular structure of human anatomy; all those muscles of the arm that I never bothered to remember in school. There are differences, however. Where the joints would be there is nothing but orange light connecting the pieces, it is the same all the way up to the fingers that now hold me in a crushing vice.

Just as I feel I'm about to pass out from the pain, the metal hand is gone and I start to fall again. I keep falling towards the light. Because, this is the closest I have ever gotten to the light in any dreams, the light starts to glow brighter, so bright if fact that it starts to hurt my eyes. Then I went into the light and all I felt was my skin burning.

When I wake up the first thing I do is to try and spit slime out of my mouth. The slime is in my mouth and throat, and it is stopping precious air from getting into my lungs. If that isn't bad enough, it is the worst thing I have ever had the displeasure to have on my taste buds; one way to describe it is that it tastes like lime flavored mucus. I fall to the cold metal floor with bare hands and knees, and started coughing and hacking. Each time I take a breath the goo that is in my throat comes up and flows over my tongue, causing me to gag and choke all over again.

After what felt like an eternity and I got the last of the goop out of my mouth. I stay there on the floor, on my hands and feet for a few minutes breathing heavily. After calming my heart rate down and catching my breath I stand up, bending stiff joints and stretching unused muscles. After stretching , I notice that it is freezing. I look down at my body, and find out why. Apparently, I have no clothes on. This is just great!

I rub my eyes and take a look at my surroundings. Behind me I see a tube against a wall, with a glass lid that is lifted upwards. It has some cushions around the back and side and looks as if it could fit a person twice my size. The lid has ice crystals on the edges of the glass that are quickly melting away.

_So that is what I came out of. The thing looks like a space coffin. Why does it look so familiar…._

I look to my left and right. There are about two dozen more of the metal and glass 'coffins' lining the steel grey wall, which has spots of rust here and there. There is a door on the wall to my right, some lockers on the opposite wall; all have names on the labels. I don't want to stand here naked, so I walk across the room to the lockers and look at the names. There is a Ryan B. there is a John P. Oh, here is one with my name, Matt S. Well, it's across from the pod I came out of, so I guess it's mine.

_Hopefully there are clothes in there_. I pull the lever and open the locker. The door squeaks loudly, shattering the silence of the room. Inside are some grey sweatpants, a matching T-shirt, a pair of socks, boxers, all are folded on the top shelf, and boots on the bottom. I quickly put them on. Now that is much better. Living in Minnesota my whole life doesn't mean that I don't feel cold. It just made me tolerant to it.

"Ok then... Where am I?" I say to myself.

I look around and see that there are words on the floor next to the door. I walk over and see the word 'CRYO' in bold white letters. I know I've heard of that word before. _Was it in a… video game? Cry-o… Hal-o, halo is a video game... Wait a just a darn minute, it's all starting to come back to me now. _Slowly, I take another look around the room to confirm my suspicions. Shit, this room looks like a cryogenics room in the Halo games! Where the hell am I? Why am i here?Then I remember what happened before I woke up, and I start to feel sick.

I remember a friend and I were on a canoe in a lake… when we heard the sirens. Then there was a storm… I start to remember hearing the thunder, feel the rain pelting my face, and the water stinging my eyes. I remember my friend… Jacob! That is his name! I remember that Jacob and I fell into the water and how Jacob started sinking. I dove right in after him, and then brought him back to the surface, and strapping him in a life-jacket. And then… I remember something was dragging me below the waves, how I was struggling to get free, to get to the surface. And then everything went black. And I started falling in that dream…

"I- I drowned," I say to myself. I'm sort of freaking out here, because I had a good life, good friends, an awesome family.

_Did someone save- no, no. there is no way that somebody would swim out there, take a canoe or kayak out in that brute of a storm. But how did I get here?Am I dreaming? Am I dead? This sounds like a cheesy fanfiction story . _I let out a small chuckle. _But seriously, where am I?_

I look back around the room, again. From where I'm standing I can see the entire room. I see all the pods, the lockers, and a terminal with a bunch of buttons_. I must of have missed that before. Well, hopefully it doesn't need a password._ I walk over to the terminal and push a blinking button that says ON. When I get it to start up, some text starts rolling down the screen. I skim over it, there is something about the military, cargo, and food for a colony? There is some stuff about heading towards earth several weeks ago... What? I tap the screen and hit a few buttons frantically trying to stop the words from leaving the screen. I have no idea what I did, but the words stopped. I read it all over again. Well, this is odd. The last thing I remember is drowning in a lake in northern Minnesota. Now I am ,supposedly, on a ship that is going towards earth. What the HELL!?

I take another look at the screen in front of me and click another button. It says that most of the pods in this 'CRYO' room are being used, the one I came out of being the only exception. I walk to the nearest pod. The glass dome is covered in frost, so I reach up, and start rubbing it away with the heel of my hand. Once enough is melted away I take a look inside, there is a man with brown frost covered hair. From what I can guess he is not wearing any clothes. Just like I was when I came out. I tap on the glass with my knuckle, and the guy shows no sign of waking up.

This is so surreal. I was on vacation, apparently drowned, and somehow, ended up in a tube that looks exactly like the ones in the Halo games. And there are other people in the pods around the room. Is it possible that when I died, I ended up in the Halo universe? No, just… no.

_There is no way I am on a UNSC ship, in the Halo Universe. This must be a huge elaborate prank, or – or something! I swear to God, If this is a prank, I'm going to kill somebody .And if this is real… why the hell would I end up here of all places? Well, come to think of it, I don't exactly know where I am._

I decide it's time to get out if this room. It's starting to feel cramped in here, and right now I'm feeling a bit claustrophobic. I walk up to the door and it opens automatically, which I think is pretty cool. Outside is a hallway, made of the same metal as the room I woke up in. On the wall in front of me is a window. What I see makes my knees weak, and my stomach rises up in my throat. I fall back against the door, my back against the wall, in fear.

Outside is the black void of space. It is beautiful in a scary way, but I still don't like it. From what I read about space travel in school and on the Internet, one tiny crack in that glass can kill me right now. Fucking hell, why do I have to end up on a spaceship? I don't like this one bit!

Before I look away, something comes into view. It is a planet. Well, it looks like that terminal in the room behind me was right; the ship is heading towards Earth. The planet Earth looks exactly as it does in the history books back home. From where the ship is now, I see a small part of north and south America, and most of Africa. But there is something different about Africa; there is a faded smudge all over the southeastern part of the continent.

_Wait a sec. Is that where the Elites glassed New Mombosa after the flood attack? _I take a few seconds to confirm my thought. _Yeah, it looks like it. Hmm, From up here it looks like plants and trees are starting to grow back, I must be here after the events of Halo 3, maybe even Halo 4. Good God that is probably the best game in the franchise. Too bad it won't ever exist in this universe._

Now the ship is in orbit around Earth. There are numerous ships of all shapes and sizes. There are a several ships with the UNSC logo on them. Then I see one of the coolest things humans have in their arsenal.

All around the earth in orbit are Super MAC guns, there are dozens of them. If what the games and books say are true, just one of those guns can blast a hole clean through a Covenant super carrier, and those guys can take several nukes to the face and shrug them off. I kinda' feel bad for anyone who would want to attack this place. Actually, if someone is stupid enough to do that, they deserve to die. Heh, heh…

I also see a few of those Space Elevators. Damn, it's a feat of engineering to have something that tall. There is one that is pretty close to the ship right now. There seems to be a bunch of ships docked at this one. One, two, three… there are thirteen ships docked at this one alone. Cool!

Suddenly, the ship I'm in turns towards a space elevator, I start to feel the ship decelerating. Behind me I hear a bunch of popping sounds, and coughing. Still backed up against the wall, away from the window, I slide over to the door, open it, and look inside. All the pods are opening up, and the people occupying them are coming out. Every single one is coughing up the same goo that I suffered through. I see that most of them are males. And every single one of them is naked. I quickly pull my head out of the room, to wait for some of them to get dressed and make their way out of the room.

A few minutes pass by with the sounds of coughing, gagging, and grumbles of how "this shit tastes terrible." I take another look inside, everyone has gotten dressed and is heading towards the door. The first person is a young male. He stands about five foot six with black hair, dark brown eyes and bronze skin.

_Maybe he can tell me where I am._

He walks past me, probably not noticing me, and stops in front of the window and looks out to space. He takes a deep breath, relaxes his muscles and mumbles something under his breath that I don't catch. I walk up to him, nervously.

"Um, hi there, I was wondering if you would tell me where we are." I ask, not comfortable with how close I am to the window.

The guy looks over to me, raising an eyebrow, giving me an odd look. "We are on a transport ship," he says with a slight Australian accent. "Right now we are orbiting earth."

"Ok. Where did we come from?"

He turns his whole body to me now. "_I_came from one of the outer colonies. But this ship was scheduled to stop at several different worlds on its way here," he answers warily. "Why do you need to know?"

"I don't remember how I got here," I say truthfully. "I woke upa half an hour ago not knowing where I am."

"Weird, I never heard of someone losing their memory during cryo-sleep. Do you remember anything?" he asks.

_Well, I can't tell him I drowned and ended up in a video game universe._

I didn't really think about answering a question about my past, so I am caught off guard. I quickly think of an acceptable response. "Well, I remember-"

All of a sudden I feel the ship lurch to a stop, and I hear a big thump go throughout the entire ship. It might mean we are docked. The guy I'm talking to looks out the window.

"It looks like we can get off this thing, finally." Says the guy I'm talking to. Confirming my thought. "Let's go get our stuff and then I'll see if I can help you, ok?"

"Yeah, thanks." I say. "But I don't have any luggage. I already checked my locker. I'll just, ya know, wait here."

"Ok. I will be back if a few minutes with my things."

After he got back I learn that the guys name is Jeffrey Waters, and prefers to be called Jeff. Jeff and I followed the rest of the passengers and got onto the elevator, talking the whole time about me and my problem. I felt that I am either a good actor or a good liar, I wasn't proud of myself.

The elevator ride down to the planet took a while. The entire time, Jeff and I talked; he told me his name, where he was from, and that he left his home to find a job with the UNSC studying the culture of the Covenant species, mainly the Elites who are now the closest allies of humanity.

When we reached the bottom, and got outside after an hour of wading through a sea of people, and security, Jeff asked if I had a place to stay. After I said no he offered let me stay at his new apartment for a while.

"It's ok," he said when I hesitated to answer. "I won't like living in an apartment all by myself anyway. And you seem like an okay guy."

So off we went to find his apartment.

I can't believe it has been eight years. Eight long years, in which my friend Jeff and I have spent in the UNSC military.

Here I am alone with my thoughts in the middle of the night. I think of how surreal it is to see a pelican airship fly by, or going to the firing range to shoot a Battle Rifle with the rest of my squad during our free time. Or even seeing the occasional Spartan! It is a shame that I have not seen the Master Chief in real life. But sadly, I don't know where he is. Anytime I search for him on the internet all I get are pictures and theories on how he is not human but an alien sent to save humanity. It's all total BS, but the people will think what they want to think.

After Jeff invited me to stay at his new apartment, he and I became great friends. A few days became a week and, I got a job as a lifeguard and a swim teacher at a local pool so I could help pay rent. Jeff for his part quickly went to the UNSC to try to get a job as an alien specialist. He got the job after a little while, he was so excited that he got it, I remember. He and I went to the bar that night, it was a blast!

I, on the other hand, basically said "Fuck it, YOLO!", and signed up to join the UNSC Marines. I went through Boot Camp, did all the training, and passed a lot of expectations. I knew going into Boy Scouts in my home universe was a good idea! It gave me the skills to be a good leader, and gave me experience in working with weapons, if only a tiny bit in automatic rifles.

One thing leads to another and… here I am now in a squad made up of a group of people that I am proud to call my friends. Right now I am the squad leader, and have been chosen to be a part of a joint Human and Elite program.

It is meant to strengthen the allegiance between our two races, and to work together to take out Storm, a rogue faction following the old Covenant ways. Which basically means destroying humanity and killing 'heretics'. The new Head Hunter program is supposed to be based off the Spartan III Headhunters. There will be over a dozen teams of two. Each team consists of one Human and one Elite. The team is supposed to be able to work together to take down high priority targets in the Storm insurrection.

And tomorrow is the day I pack up and ship out to the Headhunters HQ somewhere on a secret planet, and meet my alien partner. I am disappointed that I have not seen any alien in person the entire time I have been here. but I'll meet one soon!

Jeff however is staying here, on earth. He is working on some big project for his job. He was excited for me when I told him I was selected for the HeadHunters.

Right now the clock just passed midnight and I'm lying on my bed in the barracks. I can't sleep, I'm just so excited! I know the training is going to be hard, and the missions will be dangerous, but I don't really care. It just going to be another adventure for me, and if I die here in this universe, maybe I'll get sent back home somehow.

Now, no more thinking those thoughts now, it's time for sleep. I let out a yawn, roll over to my side underneath my blanket, and plop my head on my blanket. I pull out the dog tags I got when I joined the marines and look at them for a second. There is my name and serial number printed onto the metal.

_Tomorrow is going to be special, I just know it. I wonder what my alien partner will be like._

I close my eyes and fall into a deep sleep.

**End of Chapter Two**

**A N: **well, that's finally completed! I had a lot of fun writing this. Feel free to write a review! To ether critique my work, and/or suggest how I can do better. Thank you for reading!

In the next chapter I will reveal Matt's alien partner, who is it? Is it a male or female? Good or bad? And how will Matt end up in Mass Effect? Stay tuned to find out!


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